Here in Bakersfield, our leaders have determined that record-setting foreclosure rates, depressingly high unemployment, bankruptcies across industries and historic devastation to the area’s homebuilding industry is the perfect time to...you guessed it...RAISE fees! The brilliant plan would charge homebuyers an additional $6,000.00 for their new home – mostly because everyone knows that only new homebuyers drive on city roads but also because every time prices go up we can’t wait to buy! Right? Nothing turns off a potential buyer more than a “Prices Reduced!” sign.

But this isn’t even the most embarrassing part. While Bakersfield leaders deliver a swift kick to already beaten down homebuilders and their hopeful buyers, cities in the Bay Area are lowering traffic impact fees in order to encourage growth and economic activity. The BAY AREA. Ah the humiliation.

Merced, Santa Maria, Menifee and others cities throughout California have also lowered fees to encourage economic activity in the homebuilding sector. But Bakersfield, desperate to match a huge amount of road pork that our former congressman successfully procured, is practicing very questionable and decidedly not conservative fee creation strategies that are unlikely to produce the number of houses/fee income that they have neatly penciled into their spreadsheets.

The final insult is to have the Homebuilder’s Association representative minimized by our city manager, Alan Tandy. Bob Decker, just months into his position with the HBA but many years in the profession locally as a civil engineer and project manager, has requested answers to a number of substantive questions, to which the city has not responded. Instead, we have a city manager on local television saying he’s been “transparent” enough and Decker must just be too “new” to know what’s going on. (You have to watch the interview to truly appreciate the arrogant dismissal of a citizens’ request for a response from their own government).

Elected officials and bureaucrats in our community need to stop inventing punitive taxes and new fees (like raising our utility bills) and start being responsible with the massive amount of fees and taxes they already collect. And while you’re at it - how about a modicum of respect for the citizens who pay your salary?
Then maybe we can get back on the right side of the Bay Area.